Michael Kearns & Other Outies

June 4, 2017 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

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Twenty-seven years ago at Highways, Michael Kearns premiered intimacies, a solo performance piece that would define the thrust of his career. Kearns occupied a rare position for an artist in the late Eighties and throughout the Nineties; Kearns merged his lauded acting and writing skills with a political platform that was as relentless as the HIV/AIDS world that he depicted.

Michael Kearns & Other Outies, an evening of Spoken Word premieres, endeavors to recapture that firebrand energy but he admits that he “can’t do it alone. And the issues,” he says, “have—at least to an extent—changed.” He has enlisted a brigade of theater artists, all hyphenates, and all carrying a tradition that is steeped in transparency and authenticity: Frankie Kraft, Mason Mahoney, John W. McLaughlin, Ryland Shelton, and David Trudell.

Outies will feature each of the performer-writers premiering a piece, specifically created for this event. They will also peek into the poetic and theatrical landscape that birthed them—from Walt Whitman to Robert Chesley and James Carroll Pickett.